


deft hands, black heart

by AllegoriesInMediasRes



Series: OT3 AU verse fics [2]
Category: 16th Century CE RPF, Historical RPF, The Tudors (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Background Polyamory, Gen, Guilt, Inspired by Fanfiction, Lies, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Multi, Oneshot, Period-Typical Homophobia, Politics, Secrets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-05
Updated: 2021-02-05
Packaged: 2021-03-16 20:02:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29213121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AllegoriesInMediasRes/pseuds/AllegoriesInMediasRes
Summary: 1539. AU. When Mary Tudor discovers that Thomas Cromwell is secretly the father of her youngest half-sibling, she does not breathe a word of it to anyone. Her father and Anne Boleyn have been much kinder to Mary in this world, but she knows what their wrath would be, should she ever reveal their secrets. To protect what she has, she must resolve to lie to everyone -- even her mother and her soon-to-be-husband.Set in mihrsuri’s OT3 verse.
Relationships: Anne Boleyn/Thomas Cromwell/Henry VIII of England, Catherine of Aragon & Mary I of England, Mary I of England/Philip of Bavaria
Series: OT3 AU verse fics [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1874566
Comments: 6
Kudos: 20





	deft hands, black heart

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mihrsuri](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mihrsuri/gifts).
  * Inspired by [If You Love This Coast](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15911373) by [AllegoriesInMediasRes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AllegoriesInMediasRes/pseuds/AllegoriesInMediasRes). 



> This fic is set in mihrsuri’s OT3 verse, although you can read it on its own. It is set sometime between my fic [“If You Love This Coast”](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15911373) and before the Thomas Seymour incident in Chapter 11 of mihrsuri’s ["It’s Always Darkest Before the Dawn"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15885693).

Mother knows nothing.

Mary watches her mother exchange polite words with Thomas Cromwell, on matters of policy and religion that will not spark conflict. _You show him all manner of civility, and he sleeps with your former husband and plants his bastard in front of your daughter._

Mother laughs and congratulates Anne on some small piece of good news she has received. _You were so grateful that she advocated for my place in the succession ahead of her daughters. Of course she rested easy making such a bargain. She puts her bastard son in front of me -- not even a royal bastard, but a commoner’s bastard._

Father and Mother speak graciously about matters at court. _He separated you from your only child for months, and now he separates her from her rightful place in the succession._

Whenever the anger and the indignation almost chokes her, Mary allows herself to imagine plots of revenge. She could arrange for Cromwell to be caught in bed with them -- she knows not the details of how they carry out their affair, but she suspects that there are passageways connecting his room with the royal chambers. She could sow seeds of suspicion about George’s appearance, discreetly so that the rumors do not tie back to her. 

Mother would have even better ideas, able to draw on the wisdom and experience from her long years as queen. Mary loves and trusts her mother so dearly, and _knows_ her to be on Mary’s side in a way that no one else is. In another world, she would have told her right away and not kept her own counsel for so long. But Mary knows well how she will feel upon learning the news, and she cannot know what Katherine of Aragon might do. She would not blame Mary for keeping silent; Mary does not think she would hate her daughter.

But her mother would do _something._ She is not bound by love the way Mary is, does not view Anne and the children as family the way Mary does, and she has no liking for Cromwell. Katherine might try to get rid of Cromwell or have him removed in some way. She might send word to the Emperor or the Pope, even if Mary begs her not to, and once word of this crosses into the continent, nothing would ever be the same. Father would have Mother sent away or put under guard, and he would suspect Mary, even if Katherine told Mary nothing of her actions. 

Father would suspect her, even if she’d done nothing wrong.

Mary would have to turn on her mother to retain her standing and her father’s trust. Her life would forever be fractured, and she does not want to lose this. She does not want to live a half-life of exile or imprisonment or cold suspicion.

Father already knows that she knows.

She hadn’t meant to ever let on that she knew about George’s paternity, but she had been weak, unable to control her face and expressions. For a moment, Mary had not dissembled, and in that instant, she had let it slip. Father, Anne, and Cromwell are now wary of the power she could wield over them.

The knowledge she carries is a dangerous weapon in Mary’s hands, and a deadly one in Katherine’s. 

She feels her father’s eyes on her when he thinks she is not watching.

Their relationship is warm and loving, has been for years. He fêtes her before court as his eldest daughter, and he is allowing her an enormous degree of freedom in her upcoming marriage. But Mary knows what he can do to her if he takes some strange notion into his head. It had been an errant comment over Henry Fitzroy, after all, uttered in a girlish fit of temper, that began their estrangement. Wryly, she recalls Bessie Bount’s son, the long-dead bastard brother she never met, and thinks _How I miss you now, as at least you were of my father’s blood._

Mary must not give her father any further reason to doubt her, and that knowledge looms large in her mind when she picks her husband. She loves Philip, truly, but the reasons she chooses him are strategic as well as sentimental. He is a reformer, and on good terms with her stepmother and Cromwell. He is also a minor Duke and unlikely to be able to rally an army against her father. Philip’s relationship with his own father is a distant one, and Mary does not think the Duke of Bavaria would ever commit resources to any cause of theirs. Mary already has the Pope and the Emperor at her back, and she will not arouse fear in her father by choosing too powerful a husband.

She does not tell Philip of her silent machinations. 

In her youth, Mary would have said that there should be no secrets between husband and wife, but just as with her mother, she cannot know what her betrothed would think. She should tell him about the family he is marrying into, what kind of England they will be living in. He ought to know that their children will be bumped down by bastards, however far behind in the succession they are. He has the right to learn about all the lightless crevices of this potential marriage, and walk away if he does not want to plight his troth to such a woman as her.

She does not tell him.

The guilt curdles in her stomach, and on some days, she cannot look in the mirror. The scriptures ring in her ears: _Who may go up the mountain of the Lord? Who can stand in his holy place? The clean of hand and pure of heart._

_I am deft of hand and black of heart. I am selfish. Like my father, like all of them._

The betrothal negotiations near completion, and Philip is so _happy_ and excited for the life they are going to build together. He is already in love with her, and he’s even been bold enough to kiss her, once or twice, on their chaperoned walks. Mary smiles and laughs and does not say _I am using you, and afraid of losing you._

Sometimes she wonders if her mother might have indeed lied about not consummating her first marriage. When she first testified to it, Katherine would have been a widow of seventeen, alone in a foreign country, and in danger of losing the Queenship of England, the role to which she had been raised. Later, the stakes were even higher: the legitimacy of her only child. Could her mother have looked at all that she risked losing, and decided that it was worth telling a single lie? Once such thoughts about her mother would have been betrayal, but Mary is wiser, and aware of the dark undercurrents that shape their world.

Other times, she wonders if there may have been some truth to the rumors about her grandfather Henry VII, or her ambitious great-grandmother Margaret Beaufort, being behind the murders of the Princes in the Tower. They could have easily justified it to themselves, as Mary justifies her own wickedness, as Father, Anne, and Cromwell justify their fornication by claiming they are married in God’s eyes. Even the Holy Father justified her parents’ marriage when it was convenient for him, and then justified ending it when that became convenient for him. 

_Everyone I have ever revered is capable of expediency when it suits them. But I am no different._

She can dress it up in noble terms, that she does this for the children’s sakes, to spare them the taint of bastardy. She can claim to herself that she was forced into silence, by the implicit threat to her life. But concern for her siblings’ lives and her own safety forms only part of her motives.

_I do not want to ruin what I have. I am afraid of having to take a stand, of having to choose between them and be separated from Mother again._

She is a coward, and because of it, she will never breathe a word to anyone. She does not even confess when she visits the priest to make shrift. Mary has learned not to trust vows, not even the confessional seal. Without confession, she can find no absolution for this sin staining her soul and cannot repent. God will know, for He can look into men’s hearts and see what is there, and she will have to answer for this when she dies. 

_I would never betray my immortal soul for earthly pleasure and favor_ Mary had once told Lady Salisbury, when she was ten and the Great Matter had begun. So proudly and so surely she had declared it. Now she helps to hide a morass of sin, and offends God and wrongs her mother and her husband-to-be so that she does not lose her father’s benevolence.

_Some secrets you do not tell. Some secrets you lock away inside you and throw away the key._

**Author's Note:**

> During her time at Hatfield in our timeline, Mary made many plans to run away from England, including one scheme where she drugged everyone in the house and snuck out. None of them came to fruition, but more due to lack of opportunity than lack of gumption. Later, she would raise an army and ride into London on a cloud of support in order to claim her crown. In this universe, she is in a much better position and her faith in the institution of the Catholic Church is weaker, but I believe she might still be tempted to take political action when discovering her parents’ relationship with Thomas Cromwell.
> 
> The Bible verse Mary thinks of is from Psalms 24:3-4. 
> 
> Mary’s relationship with Thomas Cromwell warms considerably as the years go on. Philip discovers his in-laws’ secret relationship eventually -- how he does, I’m not sure of the details, but he is also okay with their relationship.


End file.
